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Well, we know that our energy bills are getting larger and, as dwellers in suburbia we would probably agree that these are going to get worse. The next question to ask is "will our energy supply be secure ?" In the short term ( ten year period ) I feel that our supplies are reasonably secure. Indeed, North Sea oil and gas will still be providing a fair proportion of our energy.
The big problem after that is our lack of new electrical generating capacity to replace ageing coal-fired stations and most of the nuclear plants. The dash for gas may well continue but this puts a greater strain on our gas supply for industry and domestic heating. So it is thought that expediant solutions now for electricity generation may well add to a hugh gas bill and an over dependence on supplies from other countries with their own agenda. Energy is rapidly moving out of our control.
I may appear almost alarmist about the long term future of both energy and the environment but the omens are not good. After attending a meeting about Celebrating Creation we were told that we are giving nature a hard time - many species are on the verge of extinction as we are devastating their habitat. Please turn to website www.jp-shrewsburydiocese.org.uk and click on Mouthpeace Issue 60 - Focus-day reported on page 4/5.
A simple formula was introduced I = C x P x L I offer no proof ( as I did with Pythagoras) only experience.
I is our impact on the environment
C is our insatiable love to consume - uses resources like metal ores and energy at an alarming rate
P is our ever increasing population - more births and, with good medical care, everyone in the developed world living into their 80's and 90's.
L is our lifestyle, high tech uses lots of energy, a throw-away society wastes material resources,
conficts in many areas of the world prevent effective development,
provision of clean water is likely to be as big a problem as the provision of energy.
For the environment to accomodate just one of these parameters would be enough to worry about - increases in consumption , say, would drain material resources of the world at a rapid rate - but all three parameters together - C, P and L - have a compounding effect and there is no chance of sustainability entering into the equation.
In part, a discussion about this is included in "Pressing Problems" and John Humphrey's article "Wasting Away" in https://sth-se.diino.com/f.thompson/migrated_data/EandH but it is a daunting issue which besets the whole planet. I think that this period of mankind's evolution may have reached a balance point (tipping point)
either Armageddon or Utopia .
It is difficult for a scientist, like myself, to contemplate Armageddon. Humankind has come so far that it seems lemming-like to throw in the towel.
Recently, I visisted Paolozzi's "Head of Inventions" at Butler's Wharf, London.
My grandson , aged 1, was delighted with the sculpture as it supported his first faltering steps. Somewhat older, 71, I was fascinated by a head, full to the brim, of inventions and the title "INVENZIONI" emblazoned on the side. Surely, the peoples of the world will have all the intellectual resources to tackle our present-day problems, or will they? On a personal note, the first 20 years of my life followed an almost fully sustainable lifestyle but this changed to a life of complete unsustainability for the next 51 years. It looks as though this little chap, my grandson, will have to change his unsustainable life into sustainability during his lifetime and all the strategies given on page 7 will need to be followed. Motivating the UK population to strive for sustainability will not be an easy task. For the people of my generation ( World War II and the following decade ) a life of austerity was accepted as it was the only option and, perhaps , seventy years on, it will again be the only option. Undoubtedly, it would be perferable to have a change of heart now and start making changes to our lifestyle without delay.
On a global scale we see that about 2/3 of the world is already in dire poverty so austerity is all they look forward to. But emerging countries like Brazil, Indian and China are aspiring to a Western lifestyle and how can anyone from the West deny them their right. It does, however, make the impact parameter in the above equation increase at an alarming rate.
Maybe we need many more Heads to augment the "Head of Inventions" to arrive at a future Utopia. Let's thinks of the warnings we have had:
1. Marion King Hubbert in 1949 warned that non-renewable resources (oil in particular) have limited life-times.
2. The energy crunch in the 1970's showed instability in the oil sector.
3. A special issue publication of Scientific American concerned with "Managing Planet Earth" hightlighted many problem areas - water, land miss use, resource depletion and others (1989).
4. Since 2000 many article have been published about global warming and carbon footprints - to name but one - "An inconvenient Truth"C by Al Gore showed that America was no longer in denial mode.
5. Recently, Catherine Brahic (New Scientist) has offered an ultimatum "Humanity's carbon buget set at one trillion tonnes and David J C MacKay, Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, has listed our options.
Could it be that all these warnings follow the path of Cassandra, who was given the gift of prophecy by the God Apollo? When she rebuffed his advances he condemned her to a cruel fate of no one believing her prophesies . Both the Greeks and the Trojans laughted at her and called her "the lady of many sorrows" .
Perhaps I should end with a short statement from a Scientific American article in Managing Planet Earth, September 1989. Life on earth may be considered to be analogous to bacteria in a Petri dish. Using a stretched time scale, in bacterial terms, our first few millennia had a nutrient-weak food source and growth was very modest. But life over the last century has followed a pattern not unlike the exuberant growth when bacteria are introduced to a nutrient-rich food source (our fossil fuels in real life). In this limited world of the petri dish, such rapid growth, is not sustainable. Sooner or later, as the bacterial populations deplete their available resources, they submerge in their own waste; their initial blossoming is replaced by collapse and stagnation. The analogy, of course, soon breaks down since the bacteria have no control over their finite environment AND WE DO. OUR PETRI DISH IS MOTHER EARTH.
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